Setting your parents up with a VPN

The first decision is whose account they use. If your parents live with you, they're part of your household and can share yours. If they live in their own home, give them their own: our Terms let an account be used within one household, not shared beyond it.

It's also the easier option. An iPhone already has their Apple account on it and an Android phone their Google account, so signing in to WrapVPN takes a couple of taps and there's no new password for them to forget. Their sessions are theirs too, so their trips to the café don't use up your allowance.

They can start on the free plan: three one-hour sessions a week, with every server location. If they find they want it on all the time, they can take the weekly or monthly plan in the App Store or Google Play on their own phone.

Pick a moment when the phone is charged, it's on their home Wi-Fi, and they're sitting beside you. The setup takes a few minutes, and the steps are below.

Most of it is ordinary: install the app, sign in, choose a location. The one moment that surprises people is when the phone asks permission to add a VPN. That's the phone protecting its owner, because a VPN carries all of the phone's traffic, so it wants a person to agree once. Let them tap it themselves, so it's familiar if it ever appears again.

Then choose a location near their home. Each location shows a speed figure, where lower is faster, and the nearest one usually wins. Once it's connected, show them what the app looks like when it's working, so they'll recognise it later. On Android, a small key icon at the top of the screen says the same thing.

If they have a tablet as well, do it at the same time with the same sign-in. No plan has a device limit.

This is the part they'll actually notice. Picture the word game they play with breakfast: between levels it contacts a handful of advertising and tracking services before it shows the next puzzle.

While WrapVPN is connected, Clean Web stops the phone looking up the addresses of known advertising and tracking domains, so those connections never start. Many of the adverts have nothing to load, and the phone saves the data and battery they would have used. It works across apps, not just in the browser.

On Android, Clean Web is already on. On an iPhone or iPad it starts off, so switch it on in the app before you leave.

Be clear with them about its limits. Clean Web blocks by domain name; it doesn't read pages and it isn't antivirus, so it won't stop a convincing scam text or a fake bank website. That conversation still needs to happen, VPN or not.

The weak point of any VPN is the moment someone forgets to tap Connect, and that moment will come. Auto-Connect removes it. On an iPhone or iPad, it connects automatically whenever the phone is on Wi-Fi. On Android, it reconnects whenever a network is available.

It's off until you turn it on, so turn it on before you go. From then on, the café Wi-Fi is protected without anyone opening the app.

One honest caveat: Auto-Connect works best with a plan. Three free hours a week won't cover a phone that sits on Wi-Fi all day, so if they're staying on the free plan, leave Auto-Connect off and show them the Connect button instead.

Hotels, cafés, hospitals and airports often show a page asking you to accept terms before the Wi-Fi works. A VPN can't get through until that page is done, which is how a perfectly good network ends up looking broken.

So the rule is short: complete the page first, then connect. If the page won't appear because WrapVPN got there first, pause WrapVPN, finish the page, and protection comes back on its own a few minutes later.

Before you leave, rehearse it once. Have them pause and resume WrapVPN themselves, and if they like notes, write the rule down: 'Wi-Fi wants you to sign in? Pause WrapVPN, accept, done.' It fits on a sticky note inside a phone case.

Their own account, Clean Web on, Auto-Connect on if they have a plan, and one sentence about sign-in pages: that's the whole job. Install WrapVPN on their phone on your next visit, and let the phone remember everything else.